There was no reply. But I heard the rustle of branches. Against my better judgment, and with careful, halting steps, I moved past the tree into the blackness.
“Hello! Who are you!”
The forest was anechoic, and swallowed up my voice as neatly as a black hole. Nevertheless, I could still hear the intruder somewhere up ahead, the humus crunching under his feet.
His feet — for who else could it be?
“Doctor Stiles!”
Now the silence was deeper, longer, and pregnant with meaning. I waited one, two long minutes. And then, at last, I was rewarded with the sound of a footstep. Just one, and perhaps I was deceiving myself, but I believed it to be a step toward me. He could not have been far away, twenty feet at the most. Alarmed, I backed up, pressing myself against a tree — surely he was better equipped than I, this night, for a fight.
But his next step was fainter, and the next after that was fainter still. And soon it was clear that he had chosen not to return. I listened as the intruder retreated farther and farther into the trees. How he navigated the treacherous ground, I could not begin to imagine; but, like a creature of the forest, he moved quickly, and soon I couldn’t hear him at all.
Nevertheless, I stood there several minutes more, perfectly still; and I might have lingered even later, had I not felt, quite suddenly, the horrible totality of the blackness around me. I may as well have been in the cellar, or some dungeon or cave, for all I could tell; and when I turned to leave I realized that I could not see out of the woods any better than I could see into them, and for a moment I believed I was lost.
But no. I mastered myself, and moved forward, back the way I came, my hands out in front of me, groping for obstacles. And a minute later I found myself in the yard once again, standing over the grave of the white deer; and a minute after that I was back in my moonlit kitchen, panting from the effort of the chase.
It was then I noticed that the rock I used as a doorstop had been shoved aside, and the door to the cellar hung open. The stairs led crookedly down into the darkness. Unnerved, I quickly shut the door and replaced the rock. The intruder, I understood — and it was he, Doctor Avery Stiles, I was certain — had come into the house. I cast my eyes about, trying to discern why he had come, and it was not long before I found the answer. It lay on its side in the center of the kitchen table, an object the size and shape of a box of large wooden matches. I reached out, picked it up, and held it in my hand.
It was cool to the touch, heavy for its size. Its cast metal surface was black, the paint chipped and scratched by years of careless handling. The sight of it, its weight, seemed familiar, infecting me with a vague, gnawing unease. It was, in fact, a toy — a miniature locomotive.
TWELVE
Whatever the true meaning of this cryptic object, its general intent was clear. It was a taunt — perhaps even a threat. “Look what I was able to do,” the intruder was saying. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I could have.” I suppose I ought to have been grateful that I wasn’t murdered in my sleep. But instead, I became angry. Stiles might still have owned his little square of land behind the rock, but the rest of it, the rock itself, and this house were all mine now — fully, and as dictated by the law. If he felt that I was trespassing, somehow, on property he still thought of as his own, well then, perhaps he oughtn’t to have sold it to the state. In any event, these disturbing games would not intimidate me. Indeed, I did not intend to sit still, idly waiting for his next sortie against my home, my land, and my hard-earned sense of personal well-being. If he wanted to taunt and threaten, then I could play the same game. I could deliver a threat of my own.
Thus resolved, I was tempted to gather my supplies and leave for the woods at first light, but I knew better than to undertake a difficult task while under the influence of strong emotion. Instead, I sat down at the kitchen table and made a detailed list, based upon my previous expedition, of what I might need in order to ferret out and neutralize this threat. When I was through, I lay in bed until daylight in a futile effort to sleep; in any event, I was able to get a bit of uneasy rest. By 7:00 a.m. I was showered and behind the wheel of my car.
Spring was certainly in the air on this clear, breezy day. Though the temperature was barely above freezing when I left the hill, the sun had driven the thermometer to forty-five by the time I reached Milan, and as I walked into the grocery store I felt a balmy gust sweep in from the southwest. Without a doubt, today’s journey into the forest would be different — I knew the way in now, and I knew where to seek my quarry.
It was 8:00 a.m. by the time I had gathered what provisions I needed, and a quarter past when I reached the sporting goods store. The store didn’t open until 8:30, so I parked about a dozen spaces away from the entrance and waited.
A few minutes later, a dented Ford Taurus spotted with primer pulled up a few spaces closer to the store. The door opened and the sandy-haired gun counter clerk stepped out. She went to the entrance of the store, pulled a key ring from her pocket, and let herself in. A few minutes later, the other employees arrived as well, and a few minutes after that, one of them appeared at the door and unlocked it. A sliding panel in the plastic business-hours chart slid aside, revealing the word OPEN. I got out of my car and went in.
I walked slowly through the store, passing down almost every aisle, to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. In the clothing section, I chose a cap, shirt, jacket, and pants in forest camouflage. Then I approached the gun counter. In the glass case underneath it, I could see the Browning P-35 that I had chosen the week before. The clerk looked up with an expression of guarded friendliness, which dissolved into worry and discomfort as she recognized me.
“You remember me,” I said.
“Mr. Loesch, hello.”
“I’m surprised that I haven’t yet heard from you.”
She turned, pulled open a file drawer behind her, and removed a folder. “No, sorry,” she said, “I was going to call you today.” She placed the folder on the counter and opened it. “I’m afraid that you failed your background check.”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“Well, that’s how it came back. I can’t sell you a firearm, sorry.” To her credit, she appeared frustrated and disappointed by the entire process, as though my rejection were a personal affront to her. Though this frustration seemed genuine, she was nevertheless still nervous in my presence. Perhaps she believed that I was a criminal.
“May I ask why?”
She shook her head. “I wish I could tell you. It just came back rejected, that’s all. We usually get some explanation, but not this time.”
“I have never been convicted of any violent crime or other felony.”
“I believe you. But the government says no, and we gotta listen to what the government says.”
The irony of hearing this from a private citizen was not lost on me, and I gave up the fight. “All right then,” I said. I took one last look at the Browning underneath the glass counter and walked away.
I did not, however, leave the store. Instead I went to the hunting section and began to examine the archery supplies. It was still early, and few customers had yet come in, so it was not long before a salesclerk approached me.